Policies

Register your .ca domain

This support article covers details on registering and maintaining .ca domain names. There are a few unique requirements and issues related to .ca domains so please read the article below if you have, or are considering registering .ca domains.

Who is CIRA?

CIRA (Canadian Internet Registry Authority) is the registry for .ca domains and is referred to in several places on this page.

Contact types and roles

CIRA defines several different forms of contacts to associate with domains. We refer to these contact types as "legal forms" within our system. At the highest level, there are 2 types of legal forms - Individual and Organizational. Each of these 2 types has multiple forms. It is required that every .ca domain have a Canadian point of presence and selection of the correct form is therefore also required.

Each .ca domain in our system will have 1 Registrant, 1 Administrative and 1 Technical contact. The same contact profile can be used for all 3 roles above as long as the Administrative and Technical contacts are Individual types. Organizational types cannot be used as either the Administrative or Technical contact. Our system will not allow you to assign an Organizational contact type to either the Administrative or Technical roles for any domain.

Other notes regarding contact profiles for .ca domains:

Any changes to contact information require acceptance of the CIRA Agreement
Changing from an Individual type to an Organizational type is not permitted
Company name, first name and last name cannot be changed for contact profiles associated with any .ca domains

WHOIS privacy

There is no option to apply WHOIS privacy for .ca domains on the domain level. However, if the contact profile(s) used with .ca domains are Individual types, then you are able to select to hide the associated contact data in WHOIS. You will see this option on the contact manager page.

Registering or transferring .ca domains

When registering a new .ca domain or transferring a .ca domain from a different registrar, our system will first ensure that you have setup at least 1 contact profile that can serve as the contacts for the domain. If you have only an Organizational contact type, then our system will ask that you create a new Individual contact type to serve as the Administrative and Technical contact for the domain. Simply follow the on-screen instructions when registering. You will also have the opportunity to select/update existing contact profiles to add information for .ca domains.

Order profiles for .ca domains

An order profile is required for each of the actions listed below. An order profile is a way to group contacts to associate with the different roles mentioned above. Your account can have 1 "Default .ca Profile" which can be setup via the Profile Manager page. Once you have a default .ca profile, you will be able to perform the following (note that this default .ca profile will be used for all associated contact roles):

Place bids or offers for .ca domains in our Marketplace
Receive .ca domain pushes from other NameSilo accounts
Order .ca domains via our API

IDN bundles

CIRA has a unique method of grouping IDN domains called "bundles". They have published an article about IDN bundles at https://cira.ca/domains-french-accented-characters.

We do not support .ca IDN bundles. Therefore, you cannot register .ca IDNs with us, and, if your .ca domain has existing IDN variants at a different registrar, you will not be able to transfer those domains to us. Currently, less than 1% of .ca domains have IDN variants.

Expiration process

CIRA has a slightly different expiration process than most other TLDs. Please see our Expiration Process article for complete timing details. Of note:

Unlike other TLDs in our system, .ca domains are not placed on clientHold upon expiration
Any domains in CIRA's TBR phase cannot be registered or renewed with us